Entering the competition will be easy! Every preset shared on PresetCentral.com will be entered into the competition.

More details to be announced at launch...

benhaines

07-29-2008, 02:56 PM

Oooh... and add to that a copy of LWCad courtesy of Viktor at wtools3d.com (http://www.wtools3d.com)

:thumbsup:

Matt

07-30-2008, 09:01 PM

Getting close now, just a little teaser! Ooooooh so cruel I know! :D

Kudos must go to Weepul who has helped make the preset scene (which will be available from the site when launched) even better than before! Also to Mike Wolf who's legendary knowledge of all things technical helped with my understanding of gamma correction!

(BTW: I know about the error on the blue square RGB values!)

cg_mike

07-30-2008, 09:43 PM

Hey Matt,

If you guys make the sample scene available pre-launch, we can get cracking on preparing some presets to upload when the site goes live.

Matt

07-31-2008, 03:56 AM

Hmmmmm, good idea, Ben, what do you reckon? (I need to finish off some stuff on it first though).

UnCommonGrafx

07-31-2008, 05:41 AM

Matt,
Finish off what you need to and definitely give the community the chance to fully participate on opening day.
This is some of the funnest stuff to do that I can see you guys being overwhelmed soon.
Thanks to all for the efforts going into what is to come.

starbase1

07-31-2008, 06:11 AM

Hey Matt,

If you guys make the sample scene available pre-launch, we can get cracking on preparing some presets to upload when the site goes live.

Absolutely! If given a crack at the sample scene, I'll get busy...
Nick

benhaines

07-31-2008, 09:18 AM

I say fair game! Who are we to stop people from building up their little stash of presets for the competition!?

Matt, I love the carbon fibre preset. Now if you could only make a few custom parts for my Ducati (in my dreams) motorbike that would be ace!

BeeVee

07-31-2008, 09:26 AM

You should speak to rapidlaser - he's printed out parts for Formula 1 teams before.... ;)

B

Matt

07-31-2008, 06:55 PM

I say fair game! Who are we to stop people from building up their little stash of presets for the competition!?

Well in that case, let's release the scene early!

I'm nearly done sorting the files and creating the scenes, there are now 12 scenes to pick from!!!! (Don't worry it's not as complicated as it sounds!)

First decide which scale will show your surface off best (a huge texture on a small object won't show any detail).

Then choose whether your preset looks nicer under GI (using luminous polys) or non-GI (using just Area Lights) and whether it should be tone mapped or not.

Render, save preset and upload (when the site goes live).

I'm hoping to do a video tutorial on how to use these files and the uploading process, which will be available on the site where you download the standard scene.

Cheers
Matt

Weepul

08-01-2008, 03:46 PM

and whether it should be tone mapped or not.

Just a bit of info I'd like to mention about this:

Gamma correction, "linear workflow", tone mapping, and so forth are all different terms (and potentially different approaches) for the same thing. You can read up about it online, but here's the purpose of having a separate preset scene for it: surfaces will look different after they've been adjusted, so a preset that was made for use with straight, unadjusted LW renders won't necessarily look right.

So, to showcase surfaces that have been made intended for use with a linear workflow, there's that scene. The tonemapping in it is fairly basic - just LW's own HDR Exposure filter, but with settings that give a pretty similar response to a 2.2 gamma (just a bit more contrasty and nicer to look at).

So, if you're going to be gamma correcting, or using SG_CCTools (http://newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82605), or rendering in Kray with exponential tonemapping, check out presets that use the tonemapped scene. :thumbsup: Likewise, if you typically use a linear workflow, you'll probably want to render your previews using that scene.

Matt

08-03-2008, 03:59 PM

Okay people!

The scene files for the Presetcentral standard scene are ready for download!

So the idea is, pick a scale that shows off your preset best. Then choose which lighting method you've designed your preset for (normal LW lights, or luminous polygons (both use GI to look nice). Then whether your surface was designed for a gamma corrected workflow or not.

Also, there are LW 9.5 / 9.3.1 versions of all. The 9.3.1 ones render roughly about half the speed of the 9.5 ones!

9.5 rocks! :)

The reason we have so many versions is basically because, LightWave isn't Maxwell, you can setup your lighting in different ways (Maxwell has NO lights remember, it uses luminous polygons essentially) so if we could have done one scene that fit all scenarios, we would have!

The test object has a surface name called "SurfaceThis", this is what you should surface, leaving all others alone.

There are also two UV maps for quick UVing in the standard scene. But clearly your saved preset wants to be as flexible as possible, so you might want to tweak it to a standard mapping technique before uploading.

Hope that helps clear some stuff!

Cheers
Matt

Iain

08-04-2008, 07:58 AM

There's obviously been a lot of work put into this and it looks very professional.
Well done, in advance, to all involved!

I'll be contributing whatever I feel might be useful.

Matt

08-04-2008, 09:59 AM

There's obviously been a lot of work put into this and it looks very professional.
Well done, in advance, to all involved!

You have no idea! ;)

But thanks!

After some suggestions, looks like we might be tweaking these scenes, this was bound to happen when we released to the masses!

Not major changes, just tweaks!

benhaines

08-12-2008, 04:38 AM

Agree with Matt, I think we'll be all catching up with sleep over the next few weeks :) Not to mention the grey hair we are all sporting now... but its worth it.

PresetCentral will be launched tomorrow (Wednesday 13th Aug), so I suggest you check back then Iain.

.pst files have been saved to the preset shelf by double clicking the thumbnail (with the Preset Shelf window open)

So, .srf to .pst = Load Surface in Surface Editor, bring up Presets window, double-click to save to it (don't forget to rename it, or it might be given an auto-generated name like "s3lo.2").

starbase1

08-13-2008, 03:53 AM

ok, at the risk of sounding totally dense....... how do we create the .pst files from our .srf presents? :stumped:

Open up your presets window, while editing your surface, (or whatever you are editing).

If you double click your preview, it will be aded to the presets in your current panel, from where you can set the name etc. The file name will not be the same if you re-use a name (such as "default"!)

For things like HV's you will need to double click the viper preview.

It's a great feature and makes organising your presets a doddle!

Nick

glebe digital

08-13-2008, 04:00 AM

Well you learn something new everyday! :)

I guess it's about time I read a manual. :D

starbase1

08-13-2008, 04:21 AM

Well you learn something new everyday! :)

I guess it's about time I read a manual. :D

I'm not kidding, I'd seriously suggest that the preset shelf was the single biggest step forward in usability for Lightwave ever. It makes it so easy to see what you are loading instead of wading through a bunch of file names...

Nick

DBMiller

08-13-2008, 12:34 PM

Anyone having trouble uploading presets? I can see step 1 of the upload process but steps 2 and 3 are not there. The header is , Step 1, Step 2, Step 3 but no input fields like step 1. I've tried it in Safari, Firefox , and Explorer.

Matt

08-13-2008, 12:51 PM

Did you click 'Submit'? It doesn't show the other fields until you do (the reason is because the site scans the preset and displays the appropriate categories, it can't do this until you upload) Don't worry it's not the final upload.

I think we should rename that button to 'Next'

DBMiller

08-13-2008, 01:44 PM

Did you click 'Submit'? It doesn't show the other fields until you do (the reason is because the site scans the preset and displays the appropriate categories, it can't do this until you upload) Don't worry it's not the final upload.

I think we should rename that button to 'Next'

I see that you did change the button. I tried again in both Safari and Explorer and it still jumps to the home page after I click "next". I must be doing something wrong somewhere!?

benhaines

08-13-2008, 01:59 PM

Hi DBMiller,

The jumping to the front page is a very crude method of error handling... i.e. I didn't have time to code a helpful error message. Basically your preset has failed some basic tests that prove its a preset.

Now, I'm not saying it isn't a preset, but rather that the preset you are trying to upload isn't recognised by code.

I recommend you email me the preset at [email protected] and I'll take a look at it for you and let you know whats up.

Take care and thanks for (trying to) sharing.

Regards, Ben

DBMiller

08-13-2008, 02:03 PM

Hi DBMiller,

The jumping to the front page is a very crude method of error handling... i.e. I didn't have time to code a helpful error message. Basically your preset has failed some basic tests that prove its a preset.

Now, I'm not saying it isn't a preset, but rather that the preset you are trying to upload isn't recognised by code.

I recommend you email me the preset at [email protected] and I'll take a look at it for you and let you know whats up.

Take care and thanks for (trying to) sharing.

Regards, Ben

You were right on about it being my preset! I went back to my scene and looked over what I had done and saw that I had saved it wrong. What a dolt... Thank you for the response. DBMiller:thumbsup: